jeff buckley recorded it in 1994. after jeff buckley's death it got more notice and then people started to pick up on the magic of this song, put it in soundtracks, on tv shows. more and more people recorded it. >> it's everywhere. >> wainwright is nothing short of extraordinary. >> it was on the soundtrack to "shrek" one of the key moments in getting this out there. there are now 350-some recordings of this song and thousands more performances by bob dylan and u2 and, you know, everybody all around the world knows this song. >> but it almost didn't happen. it languished in obscurity. >> first when leonard was writing it, he strug wld it for years. he said he wrote 75 verses to the song. he can't figure out what the song was and then finally got an edit he could live with and recorded it. turned the album in and columbia records said, sorry, we're not interested. >> it's interesting talking just before the segment began, if you listen to leonard cohen 15, 20 years ago, the first time you hear it, oh, that's clearly no